


MCC 7 but with a twist

by goosebxrry



Category: Hermitcraft RPF
Genre: Anyway yeah, Hurt/Comfort, ah yes grian angst, also sams horrible in this fic and he bullies grian a lot, false is probably ooc i dont watch her vids soo, he doesnt deserve this :(, hes just super mean, poor grian tho, ren and grian are pals, so if thats not cool with you dont read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:01:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25396582
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goosebxrry/pseuds/goosebxrry
Summary: PearlescentMoon says she can’t make it to the MCC, and the aqua axolotls are given a new teammate.Grian didn’t possibly think it could be this bad.
Relationships: Rendog & Grian
Comments: 20
Kudos: 351





	MCC 7 but with a twist

**Author's Note:**

> tw for mild violence and bullying, sam isnt a good person in this (but then again, when is he?)
> 
> yay grian angst whoooo... im sure if youve read my stuff you’d know this isnt uncommon and its back babey! hell yeah. sorry g-man.
> 
> anyways enjoy! (it feels so unnatural to not finish this off with “dont ship real ppl!!”)

The MCC was fun. Grian competed last time and, sure, he wasn’t too great at it, but it was fun! He genuinely enjoyed himself and that was what mattered.

So of course he accepted when he got the letter a month or so later inviting him back. He left with his fellow hermits just before noon.

And suddenly he was standing in the lobby, surrounded by countless yelling people, all excited for the game to start. Much to his relief, two of his teammates were people he knew (False and Ren) but Pearl had reported in sick and couldn’t show up.

Her replacement was probably due to find them soon, now that they were here.

“Okay, who’s our other teammate?” False asked as they walked to a fountain.

“Dunno. Whoever it is should be able to see our gamertag colours, so they’ll he able to find us.” Ren said, sitting on the stone ledge and dipping a hand into the cold water temporarily. “I guess we should just wait?”

Grian shrugged in response, checking the tab list.

He recognized a few times, mainly his friends from Evo, and—

SamGladiator sat a few names from the very bottom.

Wait. No, surely he wasn’t here. He couldn’t be here, right? That wasn’t possible. He wasn’t a safe person to be around, he had stuff on his record, would they let him join?

Grian didn’t get to come to his own conclusion, an all-too-familiar voice cut his thoughts off.

“Gree-on!”

He looked up, eyes wide with, with fear? Misery? Sam’s smile was wide, his red eyes glinting in a way that would appear almost friendly to anyone who didn’t know him well enough. He looked exactly the same as Grian remembered seeing him last, except without the bloodstained highschool uniform.

He seemed to just be wearing ordinary clothes, come to think of it. His bunny ear twitched.

“What, no reply? That’s not how you treat your best friend.” His voice turned cold.

“I—“ Grian could feel his heartbeat racing as he sat there, looking up from Sam’s shadow. He instinctively reached for Ren’s arm as he backed up a little further, unable to breathe, he couldn’t breathe—

Suddenly he was in cold water, shouting as his sweater got soaked. Ren yelped and dug his heels into the grass as he narrowly avoiding getting pulled in by Grian’s grip.

False stood up, eyes wide as she offered her hand to Grian and tugged him out of the fountain. Sam guffawed from behind her.

“That’s not— who are you?!” Ren stood up, towering over Sam, who stopped laughing instantly. He looked pretty intimidating when he showed his muscles off like that, especially compared to a twig like Sam— but Grian knew Sam was far from helpless.

“I’m your fourth teammate!” Sam replied cheerily, and Grian felt his blood go ice-cold. He almost let go of False’s hand, but luckily enough she had a grip on his wrist tight enough to keep him from splashing back into the water. He was dragged out a moment later.

“...You’re our fourth teammate?” False asked, almost incredulously. He nodded again, and this time reached out to shake her hand. She hesitantly took it once Grian was steady enough to stand.

“You okay, Grian?” Ren pat his shoulder.

“...Yeah.” He lied, glancing peripherally at Sam. They all went quiet.

“So, how do you two know each other?” False filled up the awkward silence, and before Grian could even start to reply, Sam cut him off.

“Highschool.”

He could immediately see Ren tense up— back during the Area 77 and hippie war, he’d possibly gotten a little tipsy and overshared some stuff. Nothing in particular, and certainly nothing about Sam, but other things. How he knew how to use a gun. How he’d dealt with the Yakuza.

How it all happened while he was in highschool.

And maybe a mention about a murder or two, but nothing he was at all comfortable getting into. Neither Ren nor Impulse pressed for more answers.

False glanced their way, seeing how visibly uncomfortable they’d both become in an instant, but put a fake smile on anyway and pretended not to notice. She turned back to Sam.

Sam seemed to have also noticed how uncomfortable Ren had gotten, and glared directly at Grian with enough pure hatred to burn him, as if searching his brain for answers to the question ‘What did you tell him, Gree-on?’

“Well, uh, the championship’s gonna start soon, I’m...” Grian trailed off, gently tugging his arm away from Ren. “I’m gonna go get some water.”

Sam frowned, and when Grian started to push past him, grabbed his arm.

He didn’t really think, just struggled away and ran. He needed to go splash some more cold water on his face and get this under control. He could do this. It was just an hour or two, and Ren and Falsie were here! He could do this, he could.

Sam mumbled something, but it failed to reach Grian’s ears. He was already gone.

Don’t leave him alone and Ren and False, a part of his mind screamed. They don’t know what he’s capable of. What if he hurts them like he hurt Taurtis?

Taurtis. No, don’t think about Taurtis.

He stepped into the bathroom, leaning on the sink and staring at his reflection. He didn’t look anything like he did in highschool, he’d changed and matured. Maybe Sam was the same. He drenched his face in water.

Using his still soaking sweater to dry himself off, he stood still for a moment. Just to take a deep breath.

The door opened behind him and he saw Ren in the mirror.

“Hey, uh, Grian, my dude,” He looked genuinely concerned, his dark brown eyes practically packed with worry. “everything alright over here?” 

Grian sighed, shaking his head ever so slightly. Ren cautiously stepped over. He pulled Grian away from his reflection to make him look at him instead, offering a small smile as he placed his hands on his shoulders. It felt grounding. It was nice.

“We can ask to have him removed from our team,” He offered. Grian looked down, falling forward into his chest. A hug felt nice right now.

Technically they could ask to replace him, but it would be a hassle, and they’d still be in the arena together. Sam would still be there, except then he’d be angry. Grian definitely didn’t want that.

So he just shook his head.

Before Ren could say anything else, a loudspeaker announced that the tournament was starting in five minutes and for everyone to meet up with their teams at the portals so they could begin.

“I’m fine, Ren. Thanks for checking on me,” He said, exhaling quietly as he walked past. Ren followed him out as they walked up the steps, quickly finding False and Sam.

They both seemed happy to see the two of them return.

“So, are we ready to kick everyone’s butts this time around?” False immediately spoke up, walking past Sam. He looked at Grian, some unreadable expression on his face.

“Hell yeah, my dude!” Ren smiled, his usual positivity back. Grian tried to ignore Sam staring at him.

“Yeah, we’re gonna win this time,” Grian smiled. The three of them were smiling when Sam scoffed, a chuckle escaping his lips. It wasn’t a friendly chuckle, either. More as if he was amused.

“Not with you on this team, Gree-on. You always mess stuff up.” He snickered, as if his dry attempt of a joke was funny. False and Ren frowned, turning as Grian flinched.

“That’s not funny.” False finally said, her voice low and threatening.

“What? I’m not wrong, you know.” Sam smiled brightly, hitting Grian on the arm a little too hard. He grunted and scowled, rubbing where it hurt and turning away from the others.

He didn’t disagree with Sam, though.

“We can still remove you from our team, Sam. I’ve got half a mind to do it right now,” False said, accompanied by Ren growling softly in his throat, the sound akin to that of a dog’s.

“Not once the championship starts~” Sam laughed, and with such perfect timing, the prerecorded announcement that declared the beginning of the game began to play out.

Grian already could tell this was going to be a long day.

“Please make your way through to the portal in an orderly fashion, you’ll be teleported to the voting room.” 

The four of them started walking over, False and Ren immediately flanking Grian to avoid Sam linking their arms together with an uncanny aggression. He was ever-grateful for the action.

Soon enough they were in a game of Skyblockle, running down thin and crumbly cobblestone paths over the endless white void. Grian was careful not to walk in front of Sam at any point, but things seemed fine.

Eventually Grian perished, and Sam not soon after.

Internally, Grian was a little glad, even if it hurt their team. Seeing Sam run around with a bloody iron sword, chasing whoever he decided to kill with that frenzied look in his eyes, didn’t exactly bring him peace of mind.

It was a little strange, being in spectator mode. He really wasn’t used to the uneasy feeling, floating yet falling, invisible, passing through people and objects.

It wasn’t any better to see Sam’s half-invisible disembodied head floating towards him. The first thing he said was,

“That was horrible, Gree-on! Were you even trying?”

“You’re dead too, Sam.” He replied coldly. Sam’s translucent mouth curved into a frown and his eyes narrowed. Grian really wished his friends were there to stand up for him, because he could already feel his confidence draining under Sam’s glare.

“Yeah, because you weren’t there to save me!”

“Does it really matter? It’s just the first— ouch!” Sam moved closer halfway through his sentence, and Grian flinched despite Sam not even being able to touch him in this gamemode.

“Don’t say it doesn’t matter. It does matter, everything matters! We needed a head-start, especially with a wasted player slot filled up by you, and now we don’t have that. We’re in last place!” He snarled.

“Why do you care so much about this?!” Grian hissed. He blinked.

“There isn’t much else I can even do, Gree-on.” He replied vaguely, face and voice completely devoid of emotion. It gave Grian the shivers, that expression— or, rather, a lack of it. He didn’t really want to think too hard about it.

He tried to do exactly that, flying off to find whoever was still alive and ignoring Sam’s angry shouting at him to come back.

He was just on his way to find Ren when he saw the death message, and Ren’s head popped into existence beside him.

“...Dang it.”

Grian laughed, backing up a few inches so they weren’t phasing through one another, glancing over his shoulder to see Sam floating away, presumably to go spectate some other living teams.

The game ended.

Then, they were back to voting. Some game called ‘Bingo but Fast’ won (in Grian’s opinion, a stupid name) and they were thrown into a small chunk of survival terrain, with a bingo card and a few enchanted iron tools.

He ran off to get leather to craft some books, following False across the river after killing a llama— not that it helped him. Not a single scrap of leather.

The trees actually having gravity was a confusing change, but not an unwelcome one. He soon found himself in some mountains, searching frantically for cows or llamas. Just a little leather, that’s all he needed. Maybe some coal would be helpful, they could cook him some—

“Hey Gree-on! Looking for some cows?”

His head shot up. How the hell did he already have an iron sword? Is that the first thing he thought to make?

“Go away, Sam! Do something useful, we’re on a timer. I thought you cared about winning.”

Grian didn’t hear Sam’s footsteps, so he assumed he hadn’t moved.

“Hey, look at me.” Sam’s voice was loud, and a lot closer. When Grian looked up, he was met with the blade of a sword coming forward at a lightning speed to meet his face. He shrieked, his arms flying up to protect himself, but the blade passed right though him.

Right, PvP was off.

“What the hell?!” Grian stood up, eyes wide. Sam chuckled darkly.

“I’m just goofin’ and gaffin’, Gree-on... Chill out.”

Grian threw a lump of coal at him, running off without even bothering to grab his crafting bench, tears stinging at his eyes. That was terrifying, not a harmless joke! 

God, why did he have to be around Sam again? He thought he’d finally escaped this madness when he left to his new server, escaped to Evo with Taurtis.

He didn’t see nor hear Sam follow him, so he assumed he was alone. 

Whether or not he passed sugar cane was beyond him, his vision was blurry and his head felt like it was buzzing. He just wanted to disconnect and go back to Hermitcraft, but he wouldn’t dare leave the championship early, throw Ren and False under the bus like that.

Needless to say, the Aqua Axolotls didn’t win again. Sam didn’t speak to his teammates during the time between the next game and the end of their previous one.

Battle Box. Fantastic! Finally something Grian could actually do well at!

Maybe Sam would see that and decide to just leave him alone for once.

But only a few seconds into the first game, and Sam discovered PvP was on— between even his own teammates. Oh, Grian did not like that look in his eyes. He knew that look.

But he didn’t do anything right away, he played along. They did well. It was laggy, but they were winning! (Sam gave himself a bit too much credit, claiming he wasn’t named SamGladiator for nothing.)

Then the game glitched up, and they were forcibly kicked to the lobby. Everyone was confused and a little anxious, but a few admin messages explaining bugs and issues left them at relative ease.

They waited a few minutes, and Sam was unusually silent.

In fact, he was uncomfortably silent. False and Ren had grown used to shutting down his rude and cruel remarks against Grian, but now they were suddenly left in silence.

Nobody really worried too much except Grian. He walked off to chat with Techno, wanting to just be around a different group for a bit, clear his head. The PvP mastermind was always fun to talk to, even if he was a little intimidating with those tusks.

Eventually they were sent back in, the texture pack fixed and score reset (we’ve been robbed, Ren repeated, robbed!)

And they were in the field.

Grian leapt forward, ahead of everyone else, hopping easily over the trench, and started his plan. Get the wool, replace the wool, and dominate the leaderboard from then on.

But the world had other plans; Grian felt a weight against him almost immediately and he was on the ground before he could even reach halfway to the centre. But he could see the other team peeking over the trench. All four of them.

“Sam!” Grian screeched and kicked, swinging his sword without finding purchase.

“PvP’s on, Gree-on. Now tell me, what’d you do to Taurtis— where is he? He needs me! We’re supposed to be together!” He roared, pinning Grian and pressing the cool metal of a blade against his throat.

Oh. That’s why he was really here, huh.

How did he even find out Grian was there? That was some serious stalking, if not something darker— but then again, not unsurprising for someone like Sam.

Immediately there was an uproar, both teams abandoning the game to separate them and the announcer yelled something incoherent, but Grian couldn’t hear. Everything was muffled, time slowed to a crawl.

Suddenly he wasn’t in the MCC.

Suddenly he was sixteen again, back in Japan, and no longer the Grian who had been through the endless torture of the Watchers, the competitive yet friendly relationship he and Taurtis shared in Evo, the wonderful antics that he partook in once he joined Hermitcraft’s sixth season.

The blade cut into his flesh and he could feel warm, crimson blood trickling down his skin. He screamed at the pain, writhing wildly as Sam’s weight was lifted off of him.

Ren started to say something, pulling him up, but Grian disappeared from his arms as Sam shrieked profanities from everyone else’s vice grips.

He disconnected from the server, trembling profusely as he fell into the less than comfortable limbo that made up the loading (or, in this case, saving) screen, then the mutltiplayer server list.

He wanted to go somewhere safe, back to his home. He needed to go somewhere he could trust. It was almost second nature to click on Hermitcraft— not to say he didn’t hesitate on the out of service Minecraft Evolution button.

And he was suddenly gasping for breath on the mycelium ground he had left on. Blood still dripped down to his hands. Shouldn’t he have been healed in this world?

“Wh— Grian? Back already?”

He couldn’t quite decipher the voice, but it sounded like Xisuma. Of course he had waited, he was always such a gentleman. Probably had potions to balance out the nausea of world-hopping and stamina potions for all of his hermits.

But Grian just collapsed with a choked sob, clutching his neck as another gush of blood flooded his palms. Everything blurred together, sky mixing red and brown and white as it mixed with the mushroom trees and it’s own clouds. Xisuma shouted something, and he wasn’t on the ground anymore.

An unusually warm hand was pressed against his throat through cloth to halt the bleeding, and that was the last thing he felt.

He passed out.

▽

“...Grian? Grian, are you awake, man?” A soft voice didn’t wake him, but more restored his ability to control himself. His neck hurt, stung like nothing else.

“...Mmm,” he hummed his reply, eyes shooting open at the pain from the vibration. He sucked in a sharp breath, shifting.

“Shh, you’re okay. You’re back in Hermitcraft.” Was that False?

But— Sam. What about Sam? Oh god, he needed to stop him, he needed to protect the hermits, they didn’t know how he worked! He was manipulative, what if he already—

“He’s not here, Grian,” Ren’s voice was soothing as he brushed his hand over Grian’s knuckles in a slow, steady, pattern. “He got banned and reported to the interserver staff. You’re safe here, Xisuma even individually blacklisted him.”

He let his eyes slip shut again.

(He would later find out Sam wasn’t even supposed to be in the MCC, that he’d enlisted the help of hackers to take Pearl’s place. He shouldn’t have ever even come back into contact with him.)

He could just about hear a muffled parrot through a wall. Where was he? He shifted again to look around, but the blurry room around him provided no help. It felt familiar.

“Where—“

“Don’t speak, Grian. We’re in Xisuma’s base, he said you had passed out in the Cowmercial District.” False replied. He nodded feebly. Xisuma’s base. That was a safe space to be, he reminded himself.

Safer than the MCC, that was for sure.

The MCC.

Wait, had that entire situation ruined the MCC? He forced his eyes open again, careful not to look too hard at any specific detail too long— he was already finding that even trying to focus on things were giving him a headacje.

“Did we—“ He paused, letting his breath even out. “Did we win?”

Ren’s hand went still, and False exhaled softly.

“Well, we didn’t exactly get any further.” She began. “After you logged off and he was taken away, everyone was told it would be held at a later date, if not just cancelled and continued at the next championship.” False said.

Grian was glad she went into detail, explaining things well instead of just replying quickly.

He couldn’t help but feel bad, though. Did he really have to freak out like he did? Tears threatened to spill down his cheeks. Those people trained for this, they spent hours on it. 

“What— Grain, nonono, don’t cry, man,” Ren shifted a little closer, brown dog ears flattening against his head. He moved his free hand up to cradle Grian’s face and swipe away at his tears. “It’s alright. It doesn’t matter.”

He did his best to stop them from flowing, but all he really did was end up crying, but silently.

“Here, do you want a potion? I should probably go mention that you’re awake,” False said, breaking up the silence, and Grian could hear her uncork a bottle. The sweet smell of healing reached his nose, and he hesitantly nodded.

She pressed the potion into his hands and he brought it to his mouth, wincing at the painful stinging that appeared for a moment, but was quickly replaced by a wave of comfortable numbness.

Ren took the emptied glass bottle from his hands.

“Get some rest, my dude.” He said, his voice quiet. Grian tried to focus on that as he felt himself falling, collapsing into a much more comforting and calm sleep than before. “Sleep well.”

**Author's Note:**

> hi!! thanks for reading :) have an amayzin’ morning/evening/night


End file.
